Group psychology

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Many aid agencies work by organising groups of people and persuading them to follow whatever practices the agencies advocate -- including so-called 'participatory' discussion.

What the agencies do not do is question why these techniques work, nor question whether those who may be in more need join the groups or benefit from the programme. It only takes a superficial understanding of group psychologies and dynamics to understand why groups work and why they don't often have benefits for those outside the groups.

I first became aware of the importance of group dynamics when assessing three separate projects in rural Uganda. One was a project with sex workers trying to improve the safety of sexual practice; the second was working with bicycle taxi drivers, to promote sexual health and care of children; the third was promoting self-esteem amongst young girls aged 11-16.

I thought it worthwhile to bring all the groups together to see what they might learn from one another, as they were all in the same town. One of the questions I asked was for each group to consider the very first changes amongst the members of the groups once they had joined them. In each case the responses were near identical. The new members had:

improved their personal hygiene, appearance and clothing
improved their ability to communicate with others
improved their conflict resolution skills
become mutually supportive
improved relations with their families
improved care of their children
gained respect amongst other members of their communities.

In addition, of course, they had all improved in the ways the projects had wanted them to.

The importance of this observation lay in two directions.

The first was the implication that the projects were successful because of the nurturing of the groups which gave them an interest in 'repaying' the support by carrying out the requirements of the project. Indeed the group members might well have felt benefits of following the requirements.

This kind of change is often seen in 'peer educators' who, because of the pride they have in being recognised and supported by outsiders, improve their capabilities enormously whilst having little impact on their peers.

The second direction was the thought that no matter what type of programme or sector with which the groups were involved, the changes that occurred as a result of group membership improved their lives independently of the particular actions they were being asked to follow.

Moving groups to be inclusive of others

When following up a project trying to stimulate women's empowerment in Burundi, it became noticeable that whilst many of the women who stayed in the groups reported considerable improvements in their communication and support, there were also women who left the groups and yet others who didn't want to join.

When questioned about their reasons for leaving the women said that they were bullied out of the group or that they had so little involvement that it proved not to be of any use for them.

Similarly those who didn't want to join the groups would say that 'it wasn't for them' or they had a fear of bullying or not being respected. In Bangladesh, in a project for girls' 'empowerment', those that self-excluded would also say that they simply had no time to join groups as they had to spend all their time working -- again a reflection of the fact that those with time to spare were happy to join the groups.

These same kinds of replies were also found when I followed up individuals in project locations in Bangladesh, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Nigeria.

More interestingly, on further probing, it turned out that those who did not want to join or who left were in the main women or girls who had little social support or who were not respected by others in the communities.

The irony is that groups designed to 'empower' women or others tend to attract the type of person who is already powerful, a good communicator, confident in dealing with others. Those who do not join are not only deficient in these aspects, but are far more likely to be in need of the very 'empowerment' that the programme seeks to improve.

The kind of psychology at play here is the one defined by Henri Tajfel in his analysis of 'in-groups' and 'out-groups'. He defined the natural tendency of any group to be exclusive rather than inclusive. Thus in a small savings and loans project for women in Tanzania, once the women had formed into groups they immediately started excluding particular women, labelling them as 'stupid' or 'unworthy'. Again the problem was that the women who stayed in the groups were already the more powerful and confident in the communities.

There is therefore a dilemma. If the very people who need support are not involved in the projects because of their exclusion or self-exclusion, how can their situations be improved?

There are three main ways of doing this.

The first is to stimulate groups to think carefully about the need for greater inclusion. It does not matter what type of group it is (it could be self-help, cooperative, club, religious, agricultural, savings) since if inclusion is successful the members are likely to become more supportive mutually, to improve in care of themselves and their children, and to improve their use of services.
The second is to stimulate communities to provide more community-based supportive mechanisms that are inclusive of all. Such mechanisms are found in many traditional societies and include child care, conflict resolution, counselling, justice and shared labour.
The third is to ensure that all community based workers are sensitised to the fact that some people are deliberately neglected and under-supported. With the understanding of the importance of social inclusion, the workers can reinforce and encourage women in their actions -- even if they fail to join groups.

Tony Klouda